The clock is ticking for XP users, with Microsoft ending support with its final security update after 11 years on April 8, 2014. Netmarketshare's desktop browser statistics show 40% of users are still using XP, totalling about 500 million users (versus Windows 7 at 45% and Vista at 6%). Gartner and Forrester analysts predict that 10% to 20% of enterprise PCs will be running XP after April 2014. Options for companies include: speed up XP conversions, sign up for Microsoft's Custom Support Program for after-retirement support, and add a supported browser to XP to replace unsupported IE8.

XP itself isn't even the problem, it's IE6. Yes, this is a problem and no, I'm not referring to IE6's security issues which are too numerous to count. The trouble is that a huge number of in-house software has been written for it, and the IT department does not want to invest the time it would take to re-write it.

It's not just the applications though. We have customers who right now, are looking at moving from IE6 to IE8 - they want us to certify that the old version of our app they're running will still work. And it will - from experience with other clients, all we need to do is do some testing, and fix a few small bugs.

But the point is that it's almost 2013, and they're finally looking at upgrading - to IE8. And the reason for that is that they're going to be upgrading their desktops to Windows 7 in the near future, and they want to certify IE8 because they can move to that on their existing XP desktops, and keep using it on 7. I'd give it another year before they ask us to certify IE9, seeing as that's obsolete now as well.

Edit: I should also note that they only moved to XP after their Windows 2000 desktops went end-of-life, and even then, it was about a year later...